The Limits of Human Medicine

Exodus 9:8-12

There are moments in Scripture when judgment is revelatory, not merely destructive. The plague of boils in Exodus 9 is one of those moments. It is not only a display of divine power. It is an exposure of misplaced confidence.

Egypt was not an unsophisticated culture. It possessed advanced medical knowledge for its time, trained physicians, established remedies, surgical practices, and temple rituals associated with healing. Its people entrusted themselves not only to skill but to deities such as Sekhmet and Isis, whom they believed governed health and disease. Healing, in Egypt, was both scientific and sacred.

Yet when the boils spread across the land, the text tells us something striking. The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the sores upon them.

These were not ignorant men. The Hebrew term used of them, often rendered “magicians," describes those skilled in occult knowledge, ritual practice, and esoteric wisdom. They were the intellectual and spiritual elite of Egypt. They had previously stood confidently in Pharaoh’s court, attempting to replicate the signs given through Moses. Now they cannot stand at all.

The collapse is physical, but the message is theological.

The human body becomes the battleground, and the bodies of Egypt’s spiritual authorities testify against the gods they served. Health, which Egypt thought it could manage through ritual and expertise, proves to be beyond their ultimate control.

This is not a primitive story about ancient superstition. It is a revelation about the limits of human systems.

What the Text Is Not Saying

It is important to speak carefully here.

Scripture does not condemn medicine. In the days of Hezekiah, God brings healing through a medicinal poultice. Luke is called the beloved physician. Paul advises Timothy to take wine for his stomach ailments. The Bible consistently affirms that God often works through ordinary means.

A faithful reading of Exodus 9 does not lead us to reject doctors, research, therapy, or treatment. It would be both unwise and unbiblical to draw that conclusion.

The problem in Egypt was not the existence of medicine. The problem was the enthronement of it.

Egypt’s error was not using tools. It was trusting those tools as ultimate. The plagues dismantle, one by one, the visible pillars of Egyptian security—the Nile, the livestock, the economy, the heavens themselves. In Exodus 9, the Lord touches the body, the most personal realm of human experience, and demonstrates that even there His sovereignty prevails.

The text forces a distinction that we must also learn to make: there is a difference between receiving medicine as a gift and relying upon it as a god.

The Subtle Shift of the Heart

For us, the danger is rarely explicit idolatry. We do not bow before statues of healing deities. Our temptation is quieter.

It appears when our language subtly shifts from gratitude to confidence in technique. It emerges when we speak as though innovation, research, and technology guarantee outcomes. It hardens when dependence upon God becomes secondary to dependence upon systems.

None of these systems are evil. Many are extraordinary expressions of common grace. Medical knowledge, procedures, medications, and therapies are gifts within the created order. They are instruments through which God often shows mercy.

But they remain instruments.

Breath still belongs to the Lord. The mystery of cell and immune response, recovery and decline, life and death remains under His governance. No treatment guarantees life. No expertise secures tomorrow.

The plague of boils is not an argument against medicine. It is an argument against self-sufficiency.

A Pastoral Word

There is a tenderness required here.

Some who read this are walking through illness. Some have prayed earnestly and have not yet seen relief. Some have pursued every available treatment and still feel their strength diminishing.

Exodus does not promise that believers will avoid physical suffering. It does not suggest that faith insulates us from disease. What it does reveal is who governs our days.

God’s promise to His people is not perpetual physical ease but eternal life. That distinction matters. It does not minimize suffering, but it anchors it within sovereignty. 

Elisha, an incredible servant of God, died from an illness. Now Elisha was suffering from the illness from which he died (2 Kings 13:14). Joshua and David called death the way of all the earth. 

Jesus brings the gift of eternal life. Death doesn't define us. Death doesn't eliminate our existence. Death is a portal to a new spiritual dimension through faith in Jesus.

God rescues us through the redemption of our mortal bodies. His plan is far greater than physical healing. It is new life.

So the question this plague presses upon us is not whether we use means. We should. It is whether our ultimate trust rests in the Giver or in the gifts.

Where, quietly and perhaps unintentionally, have we transferred ultimate confidence from the Creator to the tools of creation?

The line between science and idolatry is not drawn in laboratories. It is drawn in the heart.

May we be a people who seek treatment with wisdom, who honor trained expertise, who thank God for knowledge and skill—and who, above all, bow before the One who numbers our days.

Have a fantastic week ahead.

Greg